Al-Qaeda's Demise

Al-Qaeda’s Demise

In “How Terrorism Ends: Understanding the Decline and Demise of Terrorist Campaigns,” Audrey Cronin challenges us by suggesting that, “once we concentrate on how terrorism ends, forging a successful strategy for its defeat can begin. “  Cronin looks at a range of different case studies of different terrorist groups across history, around the globe and throughout the ideological spectrum to explore the ways in which States have responded to terrorism and how terrorist groups have traditionally come to an end.  Cronin identifies examples of how Decapitation, Negotiations, Success, Failure, Repression and Reorientation have all brought about the end of various terrorist groups ranging from the IRA in Ireland to the Shinning Path in Peru.  She then shifts to an exploration of Al-Qaeda and how it differs and she believes it will be defeated.   Cronin argues that, “Al-Qaeda will end when the West removes itself from the heart of this fight, shores up international norms against terrorism, undermines al-Qaeda’s ties with its followers, and effectively turns its own abundant missteps against it,” while suggesting that, “Terrorist Campaigns end when they are denied leadership, when negotiations redirect energies, when they implode, when they are repressed, when they descend to selfish ends, or when they transmogrify into the strategic mainstream.” America’s strategy to defeat Al-Qaeda must apply the lessons of history to Al-Qaeda’s unique structure.   Cronin, along with other scholars on Al-Qaeda such as Helfstein and Wright identify Al-Qaeda as being composed of a core, periphery and broader social movement.  These three layers of Al-Qaeda align with the traditional functions of terror; to provoke, compel and mobilize.  While Cronin is correct in identifying how to demobilize the larger movement Al-Qaeda attempts to lead, she falls short in her strategy to deal with the core and periphery.  America will defeat Al-Qaeda by decapitating its core, repressing its periphery and marginalizing the broader movement.  

   America’s strategy to deal with the operational core of Al-Qaeda is to decapitate it.  Al-Qaeda’s core, originally composed of Osama Bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri, have been immensely successful terrorists, succeeding in carrying out 50% of their planned attacks with an average death toll of 452 people.   Osama Bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri did not gain the influence they have undoubtedly exerted by being idiots.  They had a coherent strategy that has worked in the same way the martial art of judo uses an opponent’s strength or momentum against them.  Bin Laden intelligently engaged his “far enemy,” America, and provoked it to wipe out his “near enemies” (the regimes of Saddam, Ben Ali, Gaddafi, Mubarak, Saleh and Assad) in an effort to allow for America to crush the authoritative nation states and then capitalize on the chaos of the nation-state’s collapse, using neocolonial propaganda to galvanize insurgencies to drive out the west, allowing for Al-Qaeda to move in and use the primitive legal code of Sharia to restore a semblance of order and religious purity to appeal to the ignorance of war-torn, impoverished and inadequately educated populaces that feel exploited by international corporations and left behind by the international Westphalia system.  With previous terrorist groups we have seen decapitation succeed in creating infighting, causing a loss of operational control and intimidating many to exit.  If Bin Laden were still alive and allowed traditional operational control of the entirety of Al-Qaeda’s larger social base the conditions in North Africa and Syria would be alarming.   The risks persist, but with Osama Bin Laden dead and Al-Qaeda’s core leadership largely decapitated and their successors under constant assault, it has been rendered incapable of maintaining operational control, instead encouraging its periphery of allied groups to carry out attacks as was the case with Ansar Al-Sharia brigade during the overtly politicized Benghazi attacks.  The turmoil of decapitation, clash of egos and conflicts of ambition without the unifying leadership of Bin Laden has affected the operational capacity of Al-Qaeda in ways the intelligence community is yet to fully grasp.  The symbolic elements and quality targets of the core prior to the Afghanistan invasion rallied popular support.  As Iraqi proxies waged attacks the choice in targeting turned the populace against Al-Qaeda, showing the effectiveness of decapitation.  While decapitation alone cannot defeat Al-Qaeda, decapitation of its core will eventually lead to its demise in the same way that a snake continues to slither for sometime after its head has been removed.   While the snake’s death was not immediate, the death stroke was still the removal of its head.  Bin Laden’s death may still prove to be the defining moment in Al-Qaeda’s demise, however with Ayman al-Zawahiri still alive, the task of decapitating Al-Qaeda’s core remains incomplete.  Drone strikes, as in the example of Anwar al-Awlaki’s death, are valuable tools of decapitation, however, are unlikely to be a panacea as highly trained capture and kill teams along with better spy cells unhindered by international legal restraints and immediate public criticism will be at times, necessary.  I want to emphasize, that torture is unacceptable in dealing even with Al-Qaeda, that there are far more effective means of interrogation that garner far better intelligence.  

   Dealing with Al-Qaeda’s periphery demands a finessed repression dependant on international collaboration, particularly in the areas of intelligence and military, but also in legal matters and policing.   Tough diplomacy combining generous incentives and implied threats encourage cooperation amongst local governments in aggressively repressing authentic terrorist groups aligned with Al-Qaeda.  There is a necessary finesse in taking the time to really understand who is who and the differences between various groups directly linked to Al-Qaeda or related by association with Islamist armed asymmetrical warfare, because too often we have seen Middle East and North African autocrats label their internal enemies as Al-Qaeda in an effort to justify gross human rights violations; and even, at times, the American military and politicians label groups as Al-Qaeda for the sake of simplification, connotation or to garner popular support for military action, when they may only be Islamists or ethnic based movements expressing their frustrations with inadequate governance in the limited protest rhetoric available in the poor and uneducated portions of the Muslim world.  We have seen elements of the intelligence community encourage human rights violations with black sight extraordinary renditions and the turning of a blind eye to the less legitimate applications of torture when allied Governments have used them to crush rebellions threatening American strategic interests.   At times, unfortunately, America must balance its fervent support for democracy, market liberalization, human freedom and Universalist ideals with realist national interests.  At times, cooperating strongmen are necessary allies for America.  This was the case with Stalin during World War II, and is the case in the Middle East today with Abdullah in Saudi Arabia.  America can effectively repress the periphery of Al-Qaeda by fostering strong relations with Middle East governments, providing training for their security apparatus and helping stabilize vulnerable regimes cooperating in the repression of Al-Qaeda’s periphery.  This is the case in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Qatar and Oman, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and on good days, Pakistan, but also African countries like Morocco, Algeria and Nigeria.  This is not a call to gross oppression, verifiable intelligence and some form of legal framework must be integrated into strategic tactics to allow for precision targeting and the avoidance of unnecessary human rights violations or the general oppression of local civilian populaces.  In areas where the governments are incapable of repression, America needs to proactively use the lethal combination of its drones, satellites and precision bombing with special forces in the marines, navy and army along with improved classic intelligence capabilities running spy rings and penetrating Al-Qaeda and its affiliated brigades, militias and cells.   Repression is an important component of pre-empting future attacks, suffocating their allure from future recruits and mitigating their capacity to influence events.  With periphery group attacks carrying a 67% success rate and average death toll approaching 173 people per attack, it is clear that we are not doing a sufficient job in this repression.  The difficulty is to find a way to engage in targeted repression without creating a backlash from excessively repressed populaces who are provided a narrative that may play into the hands of Al-Qaeda and other extremists. It circles back to improving traditional CIA/MI6 style intelligence operations and communicating that intelligence to the appropriate military units to carry out attacks by way of sky or ground forces to illustrate that allegiance to Al-Qaeda, whether direct by way of training or financing, or indirect by affiliation and inspiration, is a death sentence.  

    Defeating the larger social movement Al-Qaeda has had a role in mobilizing depends on marginalizing Al-Qaeda as a voice for the Islamist movements ripping across the Middle East.   The Muslim brotherhood was too well mobilized and organized to be repressed indefinitely, but in order to go mainstream it had to refine its message and separate itself from the extremism of Al-Qaeda.  A sizeable bass of potential recruits for Al-Qaeda, essentially disgruntled and dissatisfied Muslim youths inhabiting the kleptocratic regimes of the Arab world, have found alternative social movements whose embrace of democracy, regard for women’s rights and focus on social justice make them more viable and popular, marginalizing the extremists.   America has a role in this, working with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Islamists in Tunisia, and the diverse spectrum of groups active in Syria and Libya to divert frustration away from Al-Qaeda and towards the removal of mutual enemies, the political process and economic activities.  This is a developing art that the Obama Administration seems quite adept at, and politically motivated criticisms are a desperate attempt to distract for either political gain or antiquated partisan paradigms and stereotyping because despite occasional operational failures, the new grand strategy is working.   The situation is tenuous and America must be delicate in its usage of force and diplomacy because the volatility of revolution is never a nice and neat process, however, progress is being made.   America has to protect its national interests, and while Israel may have preferred the security of the devils they knew, America’s geopolitical interests in terms of defeating Al-Qaeda, pushing back Russia and preventing Iran from emerging as the dominant regional force have worked thus far.  The violence of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, waged against Muslims in an effort to provoke sectarian violence back fired, causing both sides to get fed up with Al-Qaeda and turn on it, this effect can be magnified by strategic communications across the middle east.  If America and our friends across the Muslim world are wise in exposing Al-Qaeda’s tactics and the grotesque violence perpetrated on Muslims, while questioning the validity of its end game and continuing to address some of the more legitimate grievances Al-Qaeda has traditionally tapped into for recruitment, the social movement behind Al-Qaeda can move beyond Al-Qaeda, marginalize and sideline Al-Qaeda, while evolving to a tolerable form, respectful of minorities and women, embracing democracy and at peace with America.

There are no negotiations with Al-Qaeda aside from limited amnesty for unconditional surrender and public renunciation.   As America draws down its troop presence, especially if it can capture Mullah Omar and break up the Haqqanni network and improve cooperation with elements of ISI that have used the Taliban as a proxy, I predict the surviving remnants of the Taliban will reorient themselves towards poppy cultivation and function as a classic narco-trafficing group as we saw with the FARC in Columbia, and Abu Sayyaf in the Philipines.    As America draws down its troop presence in the Middle East, Palestine solidifies its nationhood and the young democracies of the Arab world develop an Islamic brand of representative governance and market economics, former Al-Qaeda sympathizers across North Africa, Syria and the greater Middle East will largely be absorbed into the political process and market place causing Al-Qaeda to largely dissipate and disintegrate into irrelevance.     As with Irgun in Israel and the ANC in South Africa successes can end terrorism and while Al-Qaeda will not be in the 5% of terrorist groups that succeed, some historically aligned groups like Hamas and the Islamic Brotherhood may succeed, and by consequence help end the violence of Al-Qaeda as well.  When international frameworks support the direction of terrorists they historically have had a stronger chance of success.  The votes in the UN to elevate the status of Palestine along with international angst against a unilateral neocolonialism and extended, extensive American Military presence in the Middle East, along with overdue departures for corrupt ruling dictators in the Islamic world will provide limited success in the completion of Osama Bin Laden’s early goals, but it will not be Al-Qaeda who gets to take the credit, ironically it will largely be the United States, its allies and the groups that have aligned themselves with us.  The cause for caution lives in the uncertainty of the Middle East’s instability, the rapid transformations, the vulnerabilities of democracy and the international trend of expanding regional trading and political blocs that could under foreseeable circumstances lead to a pan-Islamic state.  Its for this reason, America must keep a hand in managing the leaders of Islam, promoting moderate voices, prop up and strengthen relations with Arab Peninsula allies while continuing to engage with the Mediterranean Muslim States in constructive multinational venues, collaborate on providing shared humanitarian interests in an effort to end the poverty, oppression, desperation and ignorance that breeds terrorism, insurgencies and for that matter, war. Al-Qaeda member’s unwillingness to engage in any type of political process has marginalized them at a time when the Arab majority has rallied to the cries of democracy, freedom and peace.  The faith of the people has strayed from the extremist ideology of Al-Qaeda, putting it out of touch and at odds with an Arab street that has found modernized Islamic voices that offer a vision beyond just wanton destruction.